WASHINGTON -- Senator John F. Kerry is placing himself at the center of congressional action over the war in Iraq this week with a crisply worded resolution to require President Bush to withdraw almost all US troops by the end of this year.

The measure has exposed Kerry to attacks from Republicans and some Democrats, as critics rushed to tag the plan as a ``cut-and-run" strategy. But it also has made him a rallying point for antiwar activists.

The sweeping resolution amounts to the senator's sharpest condemnation of the war and his broadest repudiation of his own vote to authorize force. It also stands in contrast to his handling of the war issue during his campaign for president two years ago.

``My friends, war is no excuse for its own perpetuation," Kerry said before a group of cheering liberal activists who had gathered in Washington yesterday for a ``Take Back America" conference. ``It is essential to acknowledge that the war itself was a mistake -- to say the simple words that contain more truth than pride. . . . It was wrong and I was wrong to vote for that Iraqi war resolution."

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